A blog exploring Eberron, all aspects of 4ed Dungeons and Dragons, and gaming in general.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Kingdom Building Part 2: The Rules

General Rules:

Every month is a round. Each round you get two standard actions and a minor action. For each Kingdom Building phase (the time between adventures), you start with 1 action point which can, as usual, be spent during a single round to get an extra action. In addition, your Archetype will grant you a special ability during Kingdom Building that is activated by an action point. You gain an additional action point whenever you hit a milestone. You may only spend one action point in any round. The end of any round you or an ally have completed any number of policies, is the end of an encounter. Every two encounters is, as usual, a milestone.

Timing and Duration of Powers and Power Resets:

All powers take effect in any round when they would be most useful. For instance, if a power grants a skill bonus to all allies for the entire round, it takes place before other actions are resolved.

Powers that last until the end of your turn or the beginning of your next turn last until the end of the round in which they are used.

Powers that last until the end of your next turn apply in the round in which they are used and in the following round.

Powers that last until the end of an encounter last until the end of a round in which any Policy has been successfully completed.

Powers that have a duration of (save ends) work as normal, but will likely never be seen in Kingdom Building.

Any powers with a sustained duration must be sustained as normal. If they have (which I don't THINK this exists, but just in case) a Sustain (Move) duration, you may use a minor action to sustain the power.

At the end of any round in which any player completes a policy, all players reset encounter powers for the next round.

After every 3 encounters, all players reset all daily powers.

Actions: Pursue a Policy:Standard Action. Select a policy to pursue. Select a skill that represents your overall approach to achieving this policy for the month. Make a skill check to see if you have successfully advanced the policy. Once you have successfully Pursued a policy with a specific skill, you may not to attempt to Pursue or Support that policy with the same skill this round, though other characters may. If you successfully pursue a policy with a non-related skill, you may not use this skill again. Support a Policy:Minor Action. Select a policy to support. Select a skill that represents your overall approach to supporting this policy for the month. Make a skill check with a -5 penalty to see if you have successfully advanced the policy. Once you have successfully Supported a policy with a specific skill, you may not to attempt to Support or Pursue that policy with the same skill this round, though other characters may. If you successfully support a policy with a non-related skill, you may not use this skill again. Aid Another:Minor Action. Select an ally who is supporting or pursuing a policy. Make a skill check with the same skill they are using to pursue or support the policy of DC 10+1/2 the level of the policy. If you succeed, you grant your ally a +2 on their skill check. Transfer Policy:Minor Action. You may give a policy you own over to the control of a willing ally. They are now the owner of the policy. Use a power:Action varies. If you have a power that might reasonably help a policy come to fruition, describe how/why. This will be most common for utility powers that grant a bonus to skill checks. The action used is whatever the power’s action is.Use a Ritual:Action varies: If you wish to use a ritual to support a policy, let me know which one, how, and why. I will determine if an action is appropriate. Many may simply be free actions.

Policies
Each policy is a modified skill challenge. This list of policies is not exhaustive. If you would like to pursue something not covered here, let me know and I will write a policy that will let you complete what you wish. The Key skills are suggestions for ways to pursue the policy, representing the clear and expected avenues for success. If you use a non-key skill and get a success, you may never use that skill again on that policy. You are encouraged to come up with creative ways to use non-related skills to work towards successes. Completing a policy usually has both an immediate effect and unlocks the option of trying other, related policies. For instance, once you have completed Establish International Informants you can then pursue Establish Karrnathi Informants or Establish Aundarian Informants.

A single PC cannot use the same skill twice in a single round to pursue or support the same policy. Multiple PCs may use the same skill in a single round, and a single PC may use the same skill on multiple policies.
Each policy has an owner. The policy owner controls the benefits of the policy. Any ally may work on the policy. Multiple PCs may pursue identical policies on their own in most cases, but not always. For instance, both Istav and Art could Establish International Informants. Once they have done so, they will both receive news about goings on around the world. Their information may or may not be identical. However, only one PC can own Expand Eastern Border Defenses because there is only one eastern border to defend.

Commentary: I originally planned for 3 months=1 Kingdom Building round. My players wanted to do a lot, and pursue many options, so I let them have 1 round=1 month. The original intent was that this would act as normal combat rounds on a larger scale, however, I couldn't figure out an appropriate "move" action that would be reasonable to use. I also wanted them to get plenty done, so that's why I landed on 2 Standard Actions. I also saw Kingdom Building as an opportunity to expand on my Archetype system. I figured Archetypes, in addition to giving small-scale bonuses, could also give larger benefits during Kingdom building. More on those later.

Encounters were tricky for me. With my original plan of 3 months=round, I planned on each gap between adventures being a single encounter. 30 rounds, however, make for a LONG encounter. My next thought was to give each power a "recharge" based on its type and level. That was overly complex and didn't, at all, match any existing design. Following that train of thought, I considered calling a new encounter after so much "XP" worth of challenges had been completed or calling a new encounter after 5 complexity worth of challenges have been completed. Both of these seemed rather complex. The simplest answer was 1 encounter=a policy is finished. I am not totally happy with this answer, and am considering moving back to 1 encounter=5 complexity or a certain amount of XP completed.

Resets for Dailies were even harder. I pulled up 3 completed encounters=1 day on the basis of using 1 daily attack power/encounter. The party has 3 members, and at level 4, they have 1 daily power each (okay, the Thief doesn't, but he would were he not Essential).

Overall, I wanted to create a system that rewarded players for working together on policies by making aid another a minor action and limiting the number of times they can use the same skill in a single round on a single policy. I also like that, as it stands, if the entire group REALLY needed to act quickly, they could, using action points each, Complete a Complexity 5 Policy (12 successes) in a single round. Alternately, they can work on their own projects, giving them good stories to tell once we get back together again.